The Odd Man Out
by Louise24601
Summary: What says 'Thank you for breaking me out of prison' better than 'I have a thing for your girlfriend?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Sugary

The first time it happens is under mitigating circumstances. All right, maybe it isn't exactly the first time but the circumstances were mitigating back then as well.

It's been three years since Lincoln has been with someone, after all. The adrenaline of life on the run and the hardships of prison life would make any man crumble under the need for comfort. And whether it's from the loneliness of solitary at Fox River, or from an unpleasant-looking motel room he shares with Paul Kellerman, it so happens that Sara is the only woman in the confined universe he is currently restricted to. It seems the universe just wants to punish him more than it already has, for being a lousy brother –

What says 'Thank you for breaking me out of prison' better than 'I have a thing for your girlfriend'?

At the beginning, Lincoln would not have considered that he was attracted to Sara. Before Michael showed up at Fox River – and if he's going to be entirely honest, a few times after that – there were occasions when Lincoln noticed particularly attractive details about the prison doctor, not just the obvious fact that she was a great looking woman but little, irresistible things.

Say, when she tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear with a gloved hand and he discovered a minuscule beauty spot below her earlobe, or when the fabric of her shirt was thin enough that he could make it a game of guessing the material of her bra.

These were the kind of things that Lincoln tried to ban, when he realized what was going on between Sara and his brother. They were, he told himself, excusable things, things a man on death row was almost invited to notice, enjoying the beauty in this world wherever he could find it.

When Michael spoke with her on the phone, while Lincoln waited in the car with Kellerman, he couldn't say that he was actually expecting for Sara to agree to join them. Granted, he did feel surprisingly excited when he broke the news, but that was still a reasonable reaction. She would make a far better companion than the ex-government-agent they were currently stuck with, and one is entitled to enjoying the presence of someone already spoken for. Besides, Lincoln had always appreciated being around beautiful women, whether or not there was anything for him to expect.

By now, he can tell you exactly when it happened, when the line was crossed and Sara became more than a beautiful face – and body – for Lincoln to look at, and innocently enjoy.

They had arrived to Chicago in the afternoon. The trip had been eventful, to say the least, what with Sara sneaking past him and Michael to unsuccessfully strangle Kellerman. In the end, booking two motel rooms instead of one was a risk worth taking, one that the ex-agent was reluctant about.

"I'm only saying. One man asking for two separate rooms is shady enough, and it's undoubtedly noticeable."

Lincoln could not help himself from thinking that was a reasonable argument. Then he looked at the determination and self-control on Sara's face, and he reckoned she was still very few inches away from murder.

"We're taking two." She said, and Lincoln would have liked to see anyone call her bluff.

"You're sleeping in the tub," he told Kellerman when the ex-agent got out of the car, then for a few minutes, it was just him, his brother and his brother's girl.

"You don't have to put yourself through that," Sara said considerately. "I mean, the three of us can share a room –"

"No, I want to keep an eye on the bastard." Lincoln told himself he was saying this out of charity. His brother deserved to have a moment of privacy with the woman he loved. She probably did too.

Michael gave him a thankful nod and that was the end of it.

Though as it turned out, Lincoln did end up spending much of the evening in his brother's room, over a somewhat delicious unelaborate dinner which had been purchased earlier that day at the supermarket. The three of them shared ham and cheese sandwiches, a pack of caramels and a couple of two-dollar pies.

This was a good moment, Lincoln reflected, watching his brother laboriously chewing on a caramel, as Sara bit into a slice of apple pie. Still innocent, and still he did not feel guilty for enjoying the couple's presence.

"Hadn't seen you eat any candy since kindergarten, Mike," he decided now was an okay time to tease. "You know what? Maybe being on the run is finally starting to make you fun."

Michael unconvincingly glared and Sara's lips broke into a smile – it was one of the things that Lincoln had always thought made her look most charming.

"Try not to encourage him, okay?" Her reply startled them both, but she didn't pay any mind to their reaction. "You probably shouldn't be having those, when we can't handle your condition better."

"What?"

Sara frowned at their puzzlement and then it hit them both simultaneously, that she was worried about Michael's diet, that too much sugar was bad for the diabetes he didn't have.

Lincoln watched a twinge of guilt pop into his brother's eyes, when he decided not to tell her, not yet, not to ruin the moment with another one of his lies.

"She's right," Lincoln said, flying to his brother's rescue and grabbing the pack of caramels from his hands. "I'm cutting you off."

Michael gave him a half-embarrassed smile and Sara – out of sympathy or whatnot – put down the slice of pie that she'd been eating. Suddenly it struck Lincoln that the sugary flavor was still there, on her lips, and he knew that Michael wanted to taste it, to kiss the sweetness right out of her lips, because the same thought was sprouting in his mind, pulsating in his blood.

That's when it happens, really.

When Lincoln knows, in a blink, that this has just become a moment that they can no longer fully enjoy when they're three.

He's clearly the odd man out here and yet there is something so mesmerizing about the casual way in which Sara licks the sugary syrup from her fingers that he just sits there, fascinated, unmistakably aroused and strangely unashamed by it.

 _She is beautiful_ , he thinks, and the thought does not set off a world of guilt into his head. He's had it so many times, in an unaware consciousness, that it feels familiar and factual, a truth of the universe, and so he doesn't immediately realize what is happening.

That he is feeling exceedingly attracted towards a woman who loves his brother and is loved by him, and the only thing for Lincoln to do right now is to make some excuse to leave.

Sara indifferently wipes her hand on her jeans and the magnetism of her every movement is so conspicuous, so blatantly sensual to Lincoln's mind that he almost convinces himself that the only desire he is sensing is his brother's.

"It's getting a little late." Michael says – actually manages to sound like he means it. "We should probably call it a night. It's been a hard couple of days and we got to stay sharp."

Really, all that they need to expect from the next week is laying low while they wait to make a move on that key that Sara's father left her, but Lincoln doesn't point that out.

They really should call it a night. The most unwise things that Lincoln's ever done, the most thoughtless things he's ever thought, all happened after midnight.

"I'll get going," he says, and fancies the polite disappointment on Sara's face is a little bit genuine. "You kids take care."

He takes his leave without further ado and doesn't turn around, which does him little good, because it's the fruity sweetness of Sara's lips on his mind, the glistening wetness of her fingers when she sucked them one by one, the mindless innocence of her whole behavior, involuntarily attractive.

The second motel room – the one where Kellerman has already settled in – is only a couple of doors away, with very few dissimilarities from the one he just left, and yet the atmosphere is so strikingly different from that heated, sugary place haunting his mind that Lincoln has to take a step back to endure the change.

"Home already?" Kellerman says, without looking up from the screen of his telephone.

There is something about his voice when he says this sort of thing that Lincoln especially dislikes. Tonight is no exception and he replies coarsely, "Mind your own business."

He sits down on the bed even though the gesture is awkward, in front of Kellerman, specifically because of the thoughts he is currently entertaining.

The ex-agent has settled in an armchair at the other end of the room. He still sounds in between wry and detachedly arrogant when he replies, this time raising one eye to Lincoln, "I sure hope that's going to be possible."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Minding my own business, when we're just a couple of steps away from the pair that insisted on getting a separate room. Ridiculous extravagance, in times like these. And these walls seem pretty thin."

Lincoln doesn't say anything for a while, desperately staring at the orange-wallpapered barrier between his room and his brother's, and for a second, it doesn't even matter that Kellerman is being a jerk.

He is ruining everything. His brother went to prison to save his life and here he is, coveting the first woman Michael has truly loved, wanting her for no better or nobler reason than any man would have to want a woman.

He didn't fry on the electric chair, but he'll fry in hell all right.

"Just keep your mouth shup, Kellerman." He says and feigns to go to sleep.

This morning only, their trip to Chicago and meeting Sara at the train station actually felt like a good beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Hell

That first night in Chicago, spent at a low-cost roadside motel, is most definitely a bad one for Lincoln. Of course, he's known much worse, having spent three years in prison and all, so he can't really pretend that the fantasies that come to him in his sleep are hell, though they're far too shameful and guilt-stricken to be heaven.

So far, his attraction for Sara Tancredi had been moderate; he would naturally observe it when it was particularly striking, and that was all. Fantasies don't sound like such a great step towards the worse, but it's been so long since Lincoln has touched a woman that making love to one, even just in his mind, is too erotic an experience for him to be able to block it out.

He wakes up unfortunately late, around 9 a.m., in the midst of slightly damp sheets and with a somewhat frustrated grunt.

Kellerman is already up, sipping coffee from a takeaway cup he bought at a vending machine down the hall, comfortably seated in the chair in which he maybe slept. He casts a look at Lincoln, refrains from smiling. Lincoln wishes he had woken up sooner, so he could have sneaked into the bathroom unnoticed.

"I believe your brother and Sara are already up. They've not come knocking yet, but you can tell by the noises from the room." He raps his knuckles against the wall behind him. "Someone got the water running around six. That same someone took a remarkably long shower."

"You ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?"

"No offense, but you probably ought to leave this kind of retort to your brother – he's the witty one, isn't he?"

Lincoln kicks off the blankets and gets on his feet unceremoniously, grateful he's had the good sense to sleep in his jeans. Boxers would not have done a great deal to hide the state he's in.

…

Showering in cold water is a good start, or so he thinks, to shake off his newborn, illicit fantasies. They're still fresh enough that Lincoln thinks he might manage to quell them, leave them behind in a tangle of vivid, libidinous dreams, make it so they will never follow him out of this motel.

It's one of those places where you get breakfast for free, almost begging the customers to leave an extra star on their reviews. Lincoln meets the couple at a table, in the corner, remote enough so that they won't draw attention. Michael's plate is filled with a sufficient amount of sweet-based products that Lincoln can guess he's had a word with Sara about his alleged diabetes. Lincoln spots a few varieties of pies, on the breakfast buffet, and thinks it's a good thing that Sara was not in the mood for it.

For the time that this cooperation will last, it's probably best for things not to get sugary.

"Slept well?" Michael inquires, with such obvious sympathy that Lincoln simultaneously panics, wonders if he should pretend not to know what he is talking about, thinks of asking him what he means by that.

Then it hits him, suddenly – it's the look in Sara's eyes that does it – that he was the one watching Kellerman.

"Well, our man's a light sleeper. I'm a little ashamed to say he's kept an eye on me rather than the other way round. I was pretty beat."

He hasn't really meant his statement to be funny and yet, feels slightly victorious that it gets Sara smiling. "I guess the key to this situation," she says, and she is right in more ways than one, "is to remember that it's temporary. We stick together, watch each other's back. You two try and make use of the information my dad left me. I try not to kill Kellerman."

"Each of those matters of the direst difficulty," Michael points out.

Lincoln rather agrees, and finds that a conversation with his brother is quick to bring him back down to earth. Of course, this is all temporary. Just the sight of his brother, sitting opposite him, the brother who has gone to hell and back for him, makes last night's incident feel hazy and insubstantial. Somehow, being reminded of how much Michael loves him makes Lincoln's unconfessed fault feel half forgiven.

The lustful dreams and poignant attraction which assailed him last night suddenly become one of these _things could be worse_ situations, not really acceptable but tolerable, so long as no particular line is crossed.

After all, Sara will not forever remain the only attractive woman that Lincoln can afford to be around. He reckons that, ten years from now, when she and Michael will be married or whatnot, he will look back on those desperate fantasies with faint amusement. It can even be something he will confess to them, eventually, at some dare or truth game – _okay, well guess what, back when we'd just escaped Fox River, it had been so long since I had had anything with a woman that I started, you know, developing urges of the sexual kind for the only one in my immediate surroundings_. He imagines that Michael would roll his eyes at this, say with that drawling voice of his 'You _must_ be joking', and Sara would chuckle and look faintly flattered and that would be the end of it.

Lincoln's chest feels lighter and he takes an enthusiastic bite of scrambled eggs and bacon.

"Yeah," he nods, "that sounds like a plan."

…

The rest of the day is, in ways, better than the beginning. For starters, Lincoln hardly sees Sara at all, and is pleased to note that last night's dreams remain firmly buried beneath more urging preoccupations, such as not getting spotted by people who sleep in neighboring rooms and making sure that Kellerman doesn't get a chance to double-cross them before they double-cross him.

All in all, considering how crazy the last few days have been, it is a quiet day. Early in the afternoon, Michael makes a phone call to a lawyer who is supposed to make something of the tape that maybe proves Lincoln is innocent. That's the event of the day. Michael and Sara stick to their room for the main part, which Lincoln cannot exactly resent.

You have to understand that summer 2005 is a hot summer – such a hot summer that during the peak-sun-hours, even with the windows wide open, the small motel room that Lincoln shares with Kellerman is starting to feel like purgatory, a suffocating foretaste of this all-consuming hell blaze.

Lincoln closes his eyes, runs a hand over his scalp, wipes the perspiration off with his wrist, opens his eyes again. He wants to take a walk, get out of here for a bit, but it's too big a risk to satisfy his craving for fresh air and so he just sits there, and sometimes gets up to either pace around the room or have a shower.

The air he breathes is stuffy enough that it doesn't feel like oxygen, and Lincoln can't really think straight. On the other hand, there isn't really anything to think through – nothing to do, really, but wait. Michael did most of the planning anyway, much as he did in Fox River. Lincoln's role in all of this is not so flattering – he's much like a trained bulldog, following orders, taking care of the men who try to go after his brother and himself. It's not a role that Lincoln especially enjoys, but it's better than the one that he played at the beginning, when his brother got him out of prison. The damsel in distress.

Actually, a tiny old-fashioned part of him thinks that Sara should have played this role, but she's been so intent on saving herself all on her own, first with the men who killed her father and then with Kellerman – and not in a shy way, no sir, downright _ironing_ the bastard then jumping out a window, or so he's heard – then stitching herself up like a big girl, and meeting them at a train station with a key that's the best shot Lincoln has at exoneration… all in all, she's made it clear that playing the damsel in distress doesn't work out for her.

Chivalry nowadays is probably overrated. Still, Lincoln makes sure he never catches Kellerman so much as speaking her name out loud, or looking too lingeringly at her when they're in the same room. Though twenty-first-century women can stand up for themselves – and Sara most certainly can – Lincoln happens to be chivalrous, all the same.

Despite the overwhelming heat and the fact that he's sharing the room with a man that once tried to kill him, it's an okay one, for a wanted – alleged – criminal. In fact, by the time that his brother comes knocking on his door, around five in the afternoon, Lincoln's had no inappropriate thoughts about his girlfriend at all. Barring one, when he dozed off, and just a flash of last night's dreams came back to him.

"Hey," Michael says tensely, still in the doorframe. Right away, Lincoln can tell he's not about to invite him for dinner again. "Can I have a word, in private?"

Lincoln casts a look behind his shoulder, towards Kellerman, who has today's newspaper on his lap, but is only pretending to read it.

"Sure." Lincoln closes the door on his way out and follows his little brother to his room, which happens to be vacant. "Where is Sara?"

"Out. Buying groceries," he elaborates. "She's the least recognizable of us three, having changed her hair and all."

"You could have sent Kellerman."

"I don't like the thought of him outside, without our supervision."

Lincoln doesn't like the thought of Sara outside, without any supervision, but he doesn't point it out. It seems that Michael has something more urgent to say to him.

"So." Lincoln cuts to the chase – he's always been the kind to do that. "What's the matter?"

Michael doesn't really beat around the bush either – the lawyer called, about the tape, said there are verifications he needs to make before he can get anything out of it. He needs to meet them, as soon as possible, and Michael suggested today.

"I thought we weren't seeing him until tomorrow."

"He sounded in a bit of a hurry."

This puts Lincoln on his guard straight away. "Do you think something happened?"

"Like, he decided to turn us in instead of helping out?"

"I don't trust this guy, Michael."

"You haven't met him."

"That's exactly why." He pauses, for a minute. Perspiration beads down his brother's forehead and yet Michael seems oblivious to the heat, composed and coolly capable of thinking this through. "I don't like that we have to rely on this guy," Lincoln adds. "Maybe there's a way to do this without him."

"If we don't deal with him, we'll just be back to square one – we will need to place our trust in someone like him, eventually. Him or another, it makes little difference. We can't do this on our own."

Lincoln sighs sourly. "Take a leap of faith, hey?"

"Something of the like."

"So, what's your game on this?"

"Well," Michael pulls a silver flash drive out of his pocket, the one where the conversation which incriminates Caroline Reynolds – and may exonerate Lincoln – is recorded. "For starters, I'm going to make a copy. I'm willing to give this lawyer a shot, but I'm not going to trust him with the original. There's a place in town where I can take care of it."

"I'll come with you." The prospect of leaving this motel thrills Lincoln so that he forgets that Sara is currently out herself, and leaving Kellerman here alone, where he can wait for her to come back, is not the brightest of ideas.

It clearly crosses Michael's mind. His concern is so striking that it becomes utterly unnecessary for him to say it.

"Right." Lincoln says. "It's better if you take Kellerman, anyway. He's not wanted by the police. He can do the copying while you keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn't disappear with the recording."

"You'll tell Sara we won't be out too long, when she's back."

Lincoln acquiesces and, just five minutes later, his brother and the ex-agent are gone. There is a smirk on Kellerman's lips, when he slips past him in the doorway, and Lincoln can't determine whether the man is ill-intentioned or only intent on being an ass.

Sara would not have liked this, Lincoln reckons. Trusting Kellerman with the very evidence she nearly died to protect, even just letting him put his hand on it – that would likely get her clenching her teeth in that implacable way, when she stifles the heat of passion with coldness.

Lincoln's seen her do it, once or twice. Obviously, there was her attempt at killing Kellerman, a few days ago, but even before that, back in Fox River –

Suddenly, the memory of an examination with the prison doctor flashes through Lincoln's mind. It had been a hot day – almost as hot as now – and the inmates were riled up like animals. A couple of them were at the door, waiting for their turn while she finished with Lincoln. A guard was vaguely watching them while playing solitaire on his phone, and it had given one of the inmates sufficient nerve to say, "Looking good, this morning, doc. If you was the one wearing the handcuffs and I was playing doctor, I guarantee this visit would get real interesting."

It was the first time that Lincoln had caught it. Sara had her back turned on the inmate and he could see her face completely, steeled with the habit of enduring debasing remarks that should not get to her anymore. Lincoln had guessed, somehow, that instead of having become immune to them, comments like this one only got piled up in the inmost depths of her, drilling holes into her ideals of justice and rightful wish for respect.

Lincoln glanced at the guard, whose eyes were still set on his phone, and thought there was the faint trace of a smile on his lips.

Sara suffered the humiliation with unyielding composure, and it had struck Lincoln that she looked like a majestic, iron-jawed queen.

It so happens that she walks in when Lincoln has this specific memory in mind, and his brain needs a few seconds to adjust to the changes – the short dark hair, the inexistent white coat.

There is a grocery bag in her arms, uncomfortably heavy, and she waits no time in putting it down. Startle furrows her brows and he remembers he is in his brother's room, and has some explaining to do.

"Lincoln?" She says, but what she clearly means is, Is something wrong?

"Michael went out, a little while ago."

"With Kellerman?" The casualness with which she asks fails to convince him.

For an answer, Lincoln replies, with a tone he aims to be reassuring, "They won't be long."

That about covers his task to warn his brother's girlfriend about his whereabouts. For a moment, they both remain silent, awkward with their uncertainty of what to say to each other. They've shared a few laughs together, last night, achieved being comfortable in one another's presence, but then Michael was there to function as a kind of cement, linking them together through his own proximity with each individual.

Ridiculously, Lincoln thinks he and Sara have never actually been alone – even in Fox River, during their exams, a guard was watching by the door.

Un-supervision immediately strikes him as a kind of sin.

Maybe even the worst kind there is.

"Well," he breaks the silence promptly, "I should probably get going."

"Don't be ridiculous," she says – it's the thing to say, he realizes. For him to go back to his room while she waits here alone would be pointless. It would be rude for her to allow it. Therefore she pushes back the still palpable awkwardness between them and smiles, "Keep me company."

In the back of his mind, Lincoln thinks this is not a good idea at all, still he forces himself to smile back and nods, before sitting back on the chair in which he had been waiting for her.

It's the only seat available and Sara settles for the bed – she sits straight, like a ballerina, with her legs neatly folded, as if this was a position she had to practice. What with her father being a politician and all the formal meetings she had to have endured, from such an early age, that's probably the case.

Despite himself and probably decency itself, Lincoln becomes aware of the thin white shirt Sara is wearing, and how it clings slightly to her sweat-sticky skin. The two tops buttons are undone and the conspicuous rounded shape it reveals makes Lincoln's blood run hot – so hot he feels the need to tighten his fists, so as to balance the uncomfortable tightening of his jeans.

"Hot as hell, isn't it?"

"Hell," he says, somehow, instead of yes, and feels like a perfect fool.

It draws an unaware smile on her lips – she is conscious of their mutual embarrassment, not the cause of his.

"It's rather odd, isn't it?" She admits. "This situation. When you take a step back from the adrenaline, the rush, I mean –"

"You mean, given the fact that the only thing you and I have in common is my brother?" He says it with a smile – doesn't want her to mistake his tension for animosity.

"Actually," she says, "I wouldn't say you and I have nothing in common – we don't know each other enough to that statement."

This somewhat intrigues Lincoln. At first glimpse, Sara resembles everything he is not. She is the kind of girl whose parents refused to have him around the house. Respectable girls. Beautiful, not only in an attractive sort of way, but also elegant. Sophisticated. The kind of girl that his little brother would take home.

Lincoln wonders, suddenly, if there is more to Sara Tancredi than what that first glimpse lets on.

Truly, he doesn't know Sara much. But there are moments, reactions she has – like suddenly wrapping the strap of her jacket around Kellerman's neck – that are closer to him than they are to Michael.

"Well," he reflects, "we could probably come up with something."

He didn't intend for her to take up the challenge. Sara arches an interested brow, before getting on her feet to fetch an apple from the forsaken grocery bag. When she returns to the bed, there is no mistaking concerning the fact that she has. She does not waste a second before saying, "Where did you graduate?"

"Never went to college."

She smiles, as if maybe this is a little trickier than she was expecting. "Didn't much enjoy high school, I assume."

"I enjoyed the company – a few classes." The tone of his voice is neutral; hoarse, in that especially unemotional way he's come to master. "Didn't have the money for college anyhow."

He doesn't tell her about borrowing money from a drug dealer to send his little brother to University. Doesn't regret it, not for a second, and Lincoln's not one to enjoy commiseration.

The look in Sara's eyes is serious. The frame of brown disheveled curls adds earnestness to an already earnest face. Lincoln still isn't used to the new color – when he thinks of Sara, in his mind, he still pictures red hair.

"So what did you do, all those years?" She inquires – making polite conversation, he must remind himself, still the tone of her voice makes it sound like she cares. The pit of difference between them becomes a little fuller, a little deeper, just for that – for the fact that she's spent her life caring for everyone she met, even strangers, with an adamant, almost biblical determination, while he's been estranged from those that he loved the most. For a time, even Michael.

"Roamed." He says. Then, bluntly – he doesn't want to make any excuses for himself. "Too numb from petty crimes and small-time highs to take any roots, to grow attached." Watching for the surprise in her reaction, but her face is immaculate as a snow field – betraying no thoughts, expressing nothing. "Too hooked on booze and drugs to take care of the people I loved, or to be a decent brother."

It's a while before Sara says anything. The untasted apple gleams to a shiny crimson, in the palm of her hand.

"Well," she says in the end. "Then, I really can't agree with you, when you say you and I have nothing in common."

Spoken calmly, comfortingly even, but it doesn't completely fool him into thinking that the confession doesn't cost her – it's not one she easily gives away. The fact that she just delivered it, for free, without expecting anything in return, perfectly illustrates what Lincoln knows about her.

Sara Tancredi is a giver. The damsel in distress is no role for her, but what she'll play as willingly as anything is the sacrificial victim –

Leaving the door of the infirmary open to save his life – an innocent man's life, she had to think, but murder is the only one crime, on a very long list, which he didn't commit – and in so doing, utterly ruining her career, her reputation, all in all, life as she knew it.

Enduring torture at the hands of a man prepared to kill her, to protect something whose importance she had yet no means to measure, but yielding her life to protect it, all the same, out of – what? – decency, righteousness?

Lincoln's never actually been more convinced that they are of entirely different dispositions. He can't say that now, however, and so he offers an assenting smile.

Sara gives it back, then bites into her apple, which is when it happens.

Again.

When he feels, in his blood, bones and flesh, a desire that goes deeper than anything he's ever wanted, throbbing through his veins, hot, irrepressible, uncompromising.

The second time is worse, for numerous reasons – first, because Michael isn't here to send him to his room, and because Lincoln is more aware, unable to deceive himself.

It isn't just that Sara is a woman and Lincoln is in desperate need of one. Perhaps any would do the trick, right now – but his desire goes deeper than that.

What Lincoln wants, is all that is specific to this one woman he can't have. What draws him are the paradoxes of her character, the striking kindness that he can almost believe isn't his type, balanced by the sudden violence of her reactions, the strength of her determination – her ability to look at men like Kellerman in the face and say, Fuck you, even though there's a gun aimed at her head, even though she trusts them to fire. Because it's just her right, as an individual, not to surrender.

Lincoln can't say whether or not that's something they have in common, but it's something that he admires. It's something that isn't at all like his calculating little brother, and he likes that it isn't. He likes that it is specific to Sara alone – likes that it's such a proof of passion and such a resolute love for freedom, that he almost loves her for it.

A thread of perspiration runs down the sleek fabric of Sara's shirt and Lincoln follows it, with his eyes – and suddenly, he's fantasying again, this time wide awake, about tracing the salty tracks of sweat with his tongue, closing his lips on the curve of her breast, nibbling gently at a nipple.

The door slams open before he's had time to come to his senses and before Sara has had enough time to finish her apple. The rupture from his illicit vision is so abrupt that Lincoln starts as his brother enters the room – and he's almost actually more frustrated than he is sorry.

Almost as if he wasn't just daydreaming about near-fucking his brother's girlfriend.

Michael takes in the scene with close to no reaction at all. On seeing Sara, his face has taken the habit of softening so explicitly that Lincoln wonders how his little brother could ever tell a convincing lie.

"Hey." Sara greets, straightening up slightly on the bed, her palms sinking into white sheets. The apple in her hand looks somewhat iniquitous. "Did it go okay?"

Michael nods and tells her about the copying and the lawyer's wish to meet earlier than planned. "We're actually going to get going again, before long. I just wanted to make sure you were both fine."

Sara sounds so professional when she answers, Lincoln feels doubly guilty for the fantasies he makes her a part of. "I don't like the thought of you, meeting with someone we can't trust yet – and with Kellerman."

"It's better than leaving him with you." Michael replies.

Sara's face strains a little. Lincoln wonders if she wouldn't actually wish to be left alone with him – attend to their unfinished business.

They say goodbye. Michael presses a kiss to the top of Sara's head while Lincoln pretends not to be looking, then kisses her more forwardly on the lips. Lincoln does what he can to stifle his surprise. His brother's never been a big fan of PDA.

When they're both out of Sara's room, Michael wraps a hand around Lincoln's forearm and they momentarily stop moving.

"I wanted to have a word with you," Michael adds, "In private." He elaborates before Lincoln can ask what this is about. "Today's pattern – me, leaving with Kellerman, and you staying alone with Sara…"

"It doesn't have to be like that," Lincoln says before he can help himself, as if his brother were aware of the betrayals that have been playing on a loop in his mind.

"It does." Michael replies. "That's what we need to talk about. I know this is far from ideal for you – being kept out of the action, staying hidden in motel rooms while Kellerman and I work on incriminating Carolyn Reynolds. So I realize that I am asking a lot."

Lincoln doesn't reply – doesn't say that, after what Michael's done for him in the past, he can ask him just about anything he likes.

He doesn't, because he knows, already, what he's going to ask.

"I need it to be this way. I need you to watch Sara, while I take care of exonerating us."

"Mike –"

"She won't like this. I know that you won't either. But it's the right way, Linc. She's done enough for us. She's done too much," he corrects, "and I can't have her involved in this anymore. If this lawyer really has a solution for us, it's best she stays safe, until we can work something out. This isn't her fight."

It is. Lincoln wants to argue, for some reason. He gets that Michael wants to protect her, he does, but from the moment that he decided to drag her into this – from the moment that some men murdered her father, then broke into her apartment with the intention to murder her – this became her fight, every bit as much as it is theirs.

"I just can't trust Kellerman enough to leave him out of my sight," Michael continues, "and it isn't safe for Sara to be around him. I can't leave her alone, either – which is why I'm asking."

"What are you asking?"

"That you watch over her," is his answer. Straightforward, clear as day. "I need to know that she's safe, that you're both safe. That nothing like what happened to her with Kellerman will ever happen again."

"That, I can promise."

Lincoln extends his hand – can't really tell you where it's coming from, but Michael takes it as if it made all the sense in the world, and when both brothers shake hands, hold on tightly to each other, with everything that blood and whatever it is brotherhood is made of, suddenly, it does.

"Take care, Linc."

"Be careful."

They exchange no more words before Michael walks out of the hotel and joins Kellerman outside.

Lincoln turns back to the closed door which leads to his room – then to the one a few steps to the left, which leads to Sara's.

He's spent so many years of his life being a disappointing brother. Of all the sacrifices that Michael's made to break him out of prison, he doesn't deserve half.

Perhaps this situation, the temptation that Sara represents, is punishment – or perhaps it's giving him a chance to finally do something right.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Thin Walls

 **AN** : I'm currently working on a novel that's got me so excited fan-fiction writing is starting to feel like a guilty pleasure. This is just a small piece I had in mind that didn't require me to get too deep into the plot, and I really had a great time with it. While I'm at it, I would like to say a big thank you to all the guests that left me such wonderful reviews on "Everything". I respond to every review and felt bad not to be able to do it then, when you guys said such wonderful things. Lots of you have asked me to write a sequel but unfortunately, I really meant "Everything" as a one shot. So, unless I feel magically inspired all of a sudden, that's going to be the end of it. Take care, and I hope you enjoy this one.

WARNINGS: sexual situations

…

It starts off with the sound of a brutal thump, on the other side of the wall, not quite distinct enough for Lincoln to be certain right away. It triggers an alarm inside of him, all the same, because in some way, he immediately, inexplicably recognizes what is happening.

The hour is 2 a.m.

The light has been off for quite some time now, but sleep has been difficult for Lincoln in the past week, and he has only managed to achieve a fragile doze. The noises put him in a full awareness in an instant. Perhaps it's exactly because part of him knows precisely what is about to take place, in the bedroom right across the hall. Suddenly his eyes are wide open, his hands are fists, and the jeans he went to bed with are tight around his crotch. Whether his arousal is the reason or the cause of his alertness is utterly indeterminable. For a moment, he hears nothing, and stays frozen in his bed, his body rigid and his brain wild.

His ear is ready for the slightest noise and it does not strike him – not until a while – that he is willingly trying to pick up on glimpses that betray both his brother and his girlfriend's intimacy.

It isn't long before it really begins – the first fully distinct noise that strikes Lincoln's ear happens to be a moan, which puts him in a state of physical want that goes beyond anything he's known before. It's to say a lot. Perhaps it's the ambient darkness or the fact that tiredness has brought down all of his walls, and the world of fantasies is running wild in his unrestrained mind. Maybe it's only that Sara's voice sounded so clear, through the thin wall behind Lincoln's bed, that he can almost believe he is the one holding her up against the wall, drawing hoarse intakes of breath from her rosy lips.

 _God, Michael._

That it's his brother's name he hears, and his over-loud breathing tangled up with Sara's, does nothing to suppress the desire he feels in his blood, thundering to a hasty throb, clouding the guilt in his mind with a luscious haze.

Though tiredness is clearly hampering his better judgement, it has not quite broken the state of paralysis he is in, and – thank God – Lincoln does not think of lowering his hand to the waistband of his pants. For a long time, actually, he doesn't think at all.

The ragged breathing coming from the other room seems to be all that reality is made of.

Time does not matter any longer. Perhaps space does not either, because Lincoln feels so tightly linked to what is happening in the neighboring room that he might as well be in it.

That Michael and Sara share an intimate relationship is by no means shocking news.

There have been previous instances of this, awkward moments of uncertainty, in the past week, but they have been vague enough for Lincoln and Kellerman to pretend to ignore it. Generally, when Lincoln picked up the creaking of bed springs or other suggestive noises, he would promptly turn on the TV to a loud volume and Kellerman would dare no comment.

Now is different, terribly different, because Lincoln cannot think of a distraction or ignore what is happening –

It is happening right against the wall, just a few inches from Lincoln's head, and he can contemplate no way out of this.

Then there's a smothered shriek from Sara that almost sounds like pain, and a hoarse command from his brother: _bend over_.

"Jesus." Lincoln breathes out, silently, too silently for it to disturb the couple next door but probably not enough to elude Kellerman.

Without paying any regard to whether or not this may wake his inauspicious roommate – supposing he is still asleep, which Lincoln seriously doubts – he straightens up so that his head is not directly pressed against the wall, so that he can no longer feel the vibrations on his own skin, driving him half to insanity.

There is nothing to do but wait, while the breathing and the moaning rise to a tangible climax, and Lincoln puts vigorous effort into cooling the fire in his blood.

But there's nothing to do against the state of arousal he's in: three years without a woman and this desire he feels for Sara, illicit yet irrepressible, make it impossible for him to achieve dispassion. The pleasure that Sara feels is his doing: the one that she gives back is his to feel. And he can genuinely feel it, mingled with the frustration of unsatisfied lust, so intensely that when he hears her breathing get shallower with every moan, when he senses how close she is to orgasm, it's a relief that he manages to hold back from coming in his pants.

A little while later, silence fills the room, making the pulsating of Lincoln's blood at his temples and the beating of his heart a deafening symphony. The tension is dense, like those hot days of summer when you can feel the weight of the atmosphere crushing you in, and Lincoln knows now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Kellerman is awake.

Lincoln can make out his slouched figure, on the recliner chair.

"You ever talk about this," Lincoln warns, in a low voice, "I swear to God –"

"My, I wouldn't think of it, Burrows." Kellerman interrupts. The delight in his tone is just audible enough to belie his statement. "Regardless of what you may think, I am a perfect gentleman."

Lincoln can see the shadow of a grin on the ex-agent's face as he goes back to sleep, and suddenly he resents that he's not able to enter Kellerman's head and punish unseemly thoughts, banish all fantasies that may have to do with the woman next door –

But yet again. If Lincoln could successfully ban any such desire, he would probably start with his own.


	4. Chapter 4

That's how it happens. Routine settles in, a couple of days then another than a full week. During the day, Michael and Kellerman are gone, leading busy lives that Lincoln starts to find enviable, smothering inside that unconditioned motel room. He does as he promised, keeps an eye on Sara, tries to keep his eyes from wandering to the wrong places of her. It doesn't go too bad. Most of the time, Lincoln thinks it's good, they have a nice time. He visits her one day and lets her visit him the next. They give each other space.

He gets to know little details of her, feels guilty when it crosses his mind Michael may not have had time to learn them yet.

The twitch at the corner of her lips when she stifles a smile. Tossing her red hair behind her shoulders when she tries to focus. Rapping an index against her thigh when she's nervous – say, when Michael and Kellerman are running behind.

When she gets angry, Sara's face takes on a kind of earnestness that reminds Lincoln of dangerous, dignified animals – panthers, maybe, it definitely has something feline. It's a look she gave Kellerman throughout their ride to Chicago, before she tried throttling him with – what was it again? – a shoelace? Probably, she gave it to Michael when he told her the real reason why he was in prison. But she never gave it to Lincoln yet, so he's counting his blessings.

He's definitely in awe at Sara's anger. Veronica was a tamer nature, but Lincoln used to explode, used to bang his fists on the walls, used to feel like he'd grow crazy with the heat in his brain, his pulse racing and his eyes seeing red. Sara's anger is impressive, demands respect. Looking her in the eye, you can tell it runs deep, but not a bump above the surface. In her anger, she is perfect, in absolute command.

He thinks one of these days, if he gets bold enough, he's going to ask her about how she learnt that. Keeping herself in check. Lincoln's not one to ask personal questions, but she doesn't shy from asking them.

 _Where'd you and Michael grow up? Were you close then already?_

So maybe he'll give in, let himself be tempted. _Hell_. He's never met anyone so smooth on the outside but when scratching the polish a little, when taking a look at that maddening, raw material, you feel live-wire energy, trembling like earthquakes.

One afternoon, they're sitting on the carpet – his room, this time – it's a hundred and ten inside and Sara is fishing into the grocery back Michael brought back yesterday. Oreo cookies, brown sugar pop-tarts. Lincoln half-chuckles half-sighs. "Feels like I'm sixteen again."

"Lucky you," Sara retorts, smiling. "I didn't get to eat sugar-packed foods till I was in college. Dad was crazy about my being a healthy girl."

"Christ's sake. A childhood without sugar. My condolences."

"Not just childhood, Linc," he likes when she calls him that, likes the proximity it inspires, how comfortable she is with him. " _Adolescence_. Eighteen was how old I was when I had my first twinkie."

A burst of laughter escapes him. He likes to look cool, composed. She likes to surprise him. "What else couldn't you have?" He wonders.

"Cigarettes. Booze. Sex."

"Ouch." He breaks the word into two syllables, absently grabs a box of pop tarts. There was heat in his cheeks when heard Sara say _sex_ – damn it, it's like he's turned virgin all over again – and he'll be the most embarrassed grown man in the world if she notices he's blushing. "Didn't realize you grew up with a tyrant."

"For all the good it did us," she shakes her head. Grabs a pop tart from the box he's just cracked open. "Those things only hit me twice as hard when I was an adult."

"I'll bet."

He knows she's talking about the drugs, about alcohol addiction, but all he can think about is the sex part. Sara sexing with faceless men he can easily imagine his face into. Sex in just about any position Lincoln's ever wanted to try.

He tries to hit the brakes, desperately looks for a way to stop. He crams the nastiest image into his head. The electric chair. How his brother's foot looks now with two missing toes.

It doesn't quite do the trick. The air between them is too hot, too thick. Sweat plasters stray locks to her forehead, the material of her dress clings to her skin. All of a sudden, the noises he hears her make at night come alive, crazed half-awake distortions.

Lincoln's usually so good at seducing women. It's just fact. He never needs to say much, knows the right thing to say. For a second, he absently wonders how he'd go about it, if she were just anyone, if she weren't dating his brother. Drawing inches closer to her on the carpet, brushing sweet cookie-crumbs from her lip. Then he'd wait for her sign, she'd open her mouth, tilt her head into his, and he'd kiss her, and she'd taste cookie-sweet and forbidden and salty from the heat.

She tosses the pack of Oreos his way and Lincoln snaps out of it immediately. Somehow, he's no longer able to believe his attraction to Sara is just incidental, that she happens to be a woman and he happens to be horny.

If Fox River hadn't happened, if he'd met Sara anywhere else in the world, if she hadn't fallen for Michael first –

 _We'd be good together_ , he thinks, isn't able to help himself. It's be an easy, effortless happiness, like it is right now, having a candy-snack, watching whatever's on TV, reading each other the riddles found on the back of cereal boxes. The sort of activities that are shamelessly lazy, filling the pauses from hungry lovemaking. He can't imagine any relation he'd have with Sara wouldn't include that.

"You miss it?" She asks.

 _Fuck yes_ , he thinks, nearly says it. Being in love, sleeping with a naked body in his arms, shared showers, making breakfast for two. He used to make Veronica astonishingly good breakfasts, scrambled eggs and toast, syrupy pancakes decorated with chopped strawberries – yes, _chopped_ , he could remember carefully disposing the red heart-shaped sliced around the plate. You wouldn't think Lincoln's the sort of man to do that, just looking at him – come to think of it, Michael would probably be dumbfounded to learn Lincoln's capable of any sort of minuteness. He's got that laconic tough-guy look going on and somehow, it makes it even more intimate that he does this sort of thing, as if the girl is thinking _I wouldn't have guessed_.

Suddenly, Lincoln wishes Sara knew that about him, that he comes with breakfast in bed.

Then he realizes he hasn't answered her question and he's actually got no clue what she's talking about. "Sorry?"

"Some people get nostalgic, talking about the past. Do you ever miss any of it?"

"Oh." Yes, that's just the kind of question she would ask. Given how much time they spend together, it's not ridiculous that they get to know each other, of course. She doesn't know that much about him yet. She doesn't know about Veronica.

But right now, Lincoln realizes, when he thought about how much he missed being in love, it wasn't the past he meant – what he missed was that fantasy life with Sara he dreamed up in just a few minutes, something he's never even experienced.

"No, I wouldn't say that." He lowers his eyes. The heat makes it so hard to think, to muster a coherent sentence. "You?"

"Oh God," she sighs. Her eyes are closed. He wishes he could see what she's seeing. "I miss things I never thought to notice. Like taking long walks. I used to love walking by myself, looking at the things around me – the tables at the restaurant, the people walking me by. Somehow that always quieted me. I never used to really see the magic in being able to do that. Just walking without keeping my head down, without worrying someone'll roll down their car window and shoot me where I'm standing."

"Ah," he shrugs, makes it sound like it all slides right off his shoulders. "We'll get it back. Won't be a fugitive forever."

Her eyes wander away from him, like she doesn't want him to catch her cynicism. "Maybe."

"And if we are, all the better. We'll sail away on a great big boat and you'll have better than Chicago, you'll have the ocean."

She crams a cookie into her mouth. For a moment, the look on her face is serious, and despite the shorter hair, she looks so much like the prison doctor that used to have him sit down and bandage him up that he finds it absurd they're somehow having an afternoon snack together on the carpet of his motel room.

"You know," she says, "I don't know why, but I can't see it at all. The three of us on some never-ending cruise. Maybe it'll happen," she chuckles, "who knows?"

"Who knows?" He repeats. First the thought of nothing but his brother and Sara and the ocean feels a lot like hell, then a little like heaven.

For the first time since this inappropriate lust grew into him, Lincoln thinks of what will happen if it lasts. For years. Maybe forever.

 _There I'll be, watching my brother marry this woman, watching him melting with adoration in front of their beautiful children, and all the while he'll just think, 'Poor old Linc, never got over Veronica, did he?'_

The odd man out. It almost feels okay, so long as it can remain Lincoln's secret, so long as his brother will never know how unworthy he is of all he's done for him, that while he was working on getting him exonerated, keeping an eye on Kellerman, Lincoln was utterly failing not to fall hopelessly in love with his girlfriend.

There're times when confession's good for the soul, sure enough, but there are things you just know, right from the moment they take roots in you, that you'll never tell.

Inside his head, Lincoln swore to whoever might be listening.

 _They'll never know. Not either of them. They'll be carefreely in love and happy and I'll be there._ _Not waiting. Not hoping. Just there._

Suddenly, knocks are rapped on the door. Lincoln watches as Sara cranes her neck towards the noise. "They're home." She sighs. Lincoln can't quite determine if she's joking when she adds, with mock regret, "You know, hanging out with two wanted convicts and a psychopath was something else my father never let me do."

…

 **AN** : I know I haven't updated this story for a while, I'm much more into Mi/Sa stories at the moment and I don't actually consider this fic is Sara/Lincoln. I just want to explore the possibilities. Please let me know your thoughts and ideas for the next chapters in a comment. I'll most appreciate it ; )


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